“Like I told you, Father,” Bane said, his voice dripping with contempt, “you always fail. There will be no eternal life for you. You are nothing. Farewell.”
With a swipe of his arm-lance, he severed Khutu’s head.
An odd sense of peace washed over me. Everyone else stared at Khutu’s remains, looking a little numb, like they couldn’t believe it was over. Taking Tabitha in his arms, Bane flew over the chasm and through the tunnel to the nursery.
The Dragons and the Scelks followed, each picking up one of us, Rogue surprisingly picking me. The rest followed in shuttles. The battle was still raging. Three of the five sandworms—thankfully still young ones—lay dead on top of a pile of corpses. While the number of Workers had greatly diminished, there were still too many of them.
Bane dropped Tabitha at the edge of the tunnel then flew to the center of the room.
“WORKERS STOP!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.
As if a switch had been turned off, the cyborg females all stopped. Standing still, they looked up at Bane. My jaw dropped, wondering what the fuck was going on.
“These males and females are our allies,” Bane said. “Kill the sandworms and deactivate the grid.”
The females turned on the two remaining sandworms, and before I had snapped out of my shock, the creatures were dead and the laser grid had gone down.
“What the fuck?” Legion asked, as bewildered as the rest of us.
“Khutu told the Workers that Bane was now his new appearance. They were to obey him in every way.”
The Warriors snorted and shook their heads.
“Dread, get me to my girl, please,” Wrath said.
Chapter 20
Varnog
A few faint zapping sounds drew my attention. For a split-second, I thought my twenty minutes were up, but it couldn’t be already. And then my little Firefly shot out of the tunnel like a bullet, wings flat around her body. My jaw dropped in disbelief, then fear rose in my heart when a Kryptid arm holding a blaster appeared at the edge of my vision.
Linette spread her wings while activating the energy shield on her bracer. She deflected some of the shots, dodged a few others by performing mind-blowing aerial acrobatics that the Enhanced Worker couldn’t follow, even as my mate closed the distance with us. Then Linette fired a single, well-aimed shot.
Six’s fingers were ripped out of my skull. I winced at the sharp pain, feeling as if my brain was being sucked out of my head. Yet, without hesitation, feeling the return of my control over my body and psychic abilities, I summoned my tail and blindly stabbed behind me. The resistance it encountered immediately caved under the force of the impact. The satisfying crunching sound of chitin shattering was followed by the wet warmth of the bladed tip of my tail burying itself in vulnerable flesh and vital organs.
The gurgling sound from Six behind me was cut short by Linette flying so close to us, wings spread wide, that I could have touched her had my hands not been bound. Seconds later, a loud thud resonated behind me, followed by a rolling sound as Six’s severed head rolled into view. My mate circled back around to land before me as I made quick work of slicing through the organic membranes binding me with my tail blade.
I’d no sooner finished than she was throwing herself into my arms. I held her in a bruising embrace, covered her face with desperate kisses, and reveled in the warmth and softness of her slender body in my arms. Her beloved consciousness wrapped around mine, and I deeply inhaled the unique scent that was all her and that I’d never thought to experience again.
“My mate! My beautiful mate,” I whispered before claiming her lips in a deep kiss.
I don’t know how long we remained in each other’s embrace before reluctantly parting. Although my nape and the back of my skull hurt, I didn’t think Six had done any permanent or grievous damage to me. But taking a step back to get a better look at my mate, I finally noticed all the scrapes and burn wounds covering her fair skin and even parts of her wings where the lasers had grazed her.
I glanced at the tunnel, still crisscrossed by the laser beams before looking back at my mate.
“You crazy female,” I affectionately chastised her. “You could have died in there.”
“Nothing can keep me from rescuing you or my scaly head brother,” she said smugly while waving a dismissive hand.
My throat tightened with sorrow, guilt, and shame for my failure to protect my brother and her Warrior.
“What is it?” Linette asked, worry in her voice at my expression.
“I’m so sorry, my love. I was paralyzed,” I said apologetically before casting a sideways glance at Wrath’s mangled remains still bound to the vertical stretcher.
Her body stiffened, and her lips parted in shock at the gruesome sight. But instead of falling apart as I’d expected, my mate’s face hardened as she marched up to the body. Anger settling on her delicate, elven features, Linette gently caressed Wrath’s black hair, before turning around to look at the withered remains of Bane.
“They’re making that demented fuck pay for all of this now,” Linette said with a feral glee.
I slightly recoiled in confusion. “They?”
“I caught Wrath and Bane as soon as I cleared the tunnel,” my woman gently explained. “Something in this room was blocking our girls from capturing them. But as soon as I did, Ayana and Madeline yanked them out of my psychic vessel. They are alive and well—although Bane almost didn’t make it—and they’re apparently kicking Khutu’s ass. We’re missing all the fun.”
I gaped at her in disbelief. Not daring to hope, I psychically reached out to Bane. The pain at the back of my head flared, but I barely noticed it through the joy of touching his beloved soul and then finding Wrath whole as well.
“My goddess,” I whispered, staring at my mate in awe. “Is there no limit to the happiness you will bring me?”
She melted against me and shook her head with a mischievous glimmer in her enlarged, midnight blue eyes. “Nope. I’m planning on giving you regular happiness overdoses. Prepare to be overwhelmed.” Linette rubbed her nose against mine, squished my lips with, a kiss and then glanced around the room. “We need to find a way out though. I am not flying through that shit again.”
I chuckled and, for the first time, was able to examine the room unrestricted. It was far bigger than I had assumed. Behind a thick glass wall, a state-of-the-art operating room and lab occupied the entire back wall. A couple of small organic vessels of a make I didn’t know, but even smaller than a Firefly, were parked on the right corner of the room. Two barely noticeable doors could be seen on the left wall, one of them large enough for a small vessel to go through, the other standard-sized door was equipped with a high-tech locking mechanism. We didn’t see any console or control panel that would allow us to disable the laser grid or open the large door—which I believed was a secret exit out of the base.
“Maybe there’s a remote control on his body or they can be activated from those small vessels,” Linette said. The same thought had crossed my mind, but her tone echoed the doubt I also felt about it.
She was leaning towards the repulsive corpse of the General when it suddenly shuddered and sharply inhaled. Linette yelped and jumped back, instinctively spraying acid at him. Khutu yowled as it immediately began eating through the tumorous mass that connected his two pairs of legs. But before he could retaliate, I caught his mind in a snare.